Having won the 2009 NACCE Entrepreneurship Center Innovation Award, we knew that Tim would be great at leading the Entrepreneurship Cadre. What we hadn’t expected when we submitted the proposal was that we would be able to parley Tim’s expertise into so much more when he is here:

1. With expertise in entrepreneurship center development and program review, Tim has also agreed to lead a session that will be co-sponsored by our local SBDC, and the chamber and economic development entities of the town of Maricopa (at the last census, the town had less than 4,000 inhabitants and by this next census will be over 40,000 in population). Central Arizona College is building a new campus in Maricopa so this session will serve as a needs assessment for community, workforce and economic development planning and entrepreneurship services. We will also recruit local entrepreneurs to work with our college programs and serve as guest speakers and advisory council members, etc.

2. While Tim is in town to present for our kick-off event, our local Tech Prep consortium will be hosting a professional development day. The consortium has agreed to allow entrepreneurship to become the focus of the day and Tim has again graciously agreed to lead the training.

We are pleased that the Coleman Foundation supported our proposal to incorporate entrepreneurship content and methods across all of our occupational programs. Our administration is leveraging these grant funds into a district-wide project that encompasses vocational and academic programs, as well as district wide operating procedures. We are recruiting and experienced entrepreneurship facilitator to lead us in this effort.

It took a lot of work collaborating with faculty and administration to develop this proposal. It was even harder getting up front of our peers and the Foundation panel to make the elevator grant pitch. That being said, if I would have known in advance that we were required to blog as part of the award, I think I might have passed up this wonderful opportunity. ;-)